


Done

by gemteddy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Guilt, Insecurity, Lance doesn't deserve this, Langst, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9582128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gemteddy/pseuds/gemteddy
Summary: He couldn’t even remember the final words that did it. They were just like the others he’d heard over and over for months, he hardly thought it mattered. Lance didn’t care anymore anyways. What did it matter, he got the point. He wasn’t a part of them, how they said it didn’t change that.





	1. Not a Joke

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my first time writing a fic, and actually sticking to it long enough to try and publish it. It's based off of  
> [fistatfirstklance](http://fistatfirstklance.tumblr.com/)'s  
> post [here](http://fistatfirstklance.tumblr.com/post/151971264720/gimme-a-fic-where-someone-makes-one-too-many) which was sad enough to inspire me to write it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy all of this langst.

He couldn’t even remember the final words that did it. They were just like the others he’d heard over and over for months, he hardly thought it mattered. Lance didn’t care anymore anyways. What did it matter, he got the point. He wasn’t a part of them, how they said it didn’t change that.

In the beginning, he hadn’t thought anything by it. A quick dumb joke here, short taunts during training among sparring partners, a little levity brought at his expense every so often. Sure, Lance didn’t want to always be the fool but if he could relax the air or distract them, _himself_ , from the near impossible task they were facing then he was glad to do it.

That is until it didn’t seem as much of a joke.

Mistakes lead to long lectures that made him feel so small, like he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t improving enough, wasn’t up to where he was supposed to be.

They would tell Lance that he needed to get serious and slacking off wasn’t going to help him, but he was being serious. He was trying so hard just to catch up with the rest of them, to prove his worth to the team but it just never seemed to be enough.

Soon the good-natured ribbings didn’t feel so easy to ignore, but Lance couldn’t show that it bothered him. To them it was still just meaningless teasing between friends, right? If he said anything he’d just get asked something along the lines of where his sense of humour was and a dismissal of his worries. It wasn’t worth the fuss of bringing it up. He would just smile through it like normal.

He started keeping up a mask hiding the way their laughter stung him, acting how he thought they wanted their jokes received. It felt like it had been a long time since he’d just been himself.

But the comments still ate at him, everything he said became more fuel for an idiot joke, every flirty action was met with a long groan, every fun but foolish idea was met with disappointment.

Eventually the idea that this was how they truly saw Lance clung to him at all times. After every group mission he began to pick apart every blunder he made. In every day conversation, he began to see how truly annoying he must be in their eyes.

Lance didn’t want to admit it … but maybe they were right about him.

He kept his head down with this new self awareness, trying to convince himself that he was different, but that didn’t stop them from poking a little fun at him whenever he came to join the group.

Finally, one day it became too much.

After a mission, he knew he could have done better in, they’d all come to a common area weary and tired. He’d already started picking himself apart as had become habit when the final blow came. Those unmemorable words were the last of what he could put up with.

Lance already knew he was stupid, and foolish and all of what they’d said repeatedly. He was already picking himself apart even as he sat with them, he couldn’t take another reminder. He was DONE. His fake smile dropped and his half-hearted conversation with the others stopped. He didn’t say anything just stood up abruptly and walked away, not pausing at all to catch the sluggishly startled reaction of the other six.

He knew his place. That didn’t mean he needed to sit around and keep taking it from those he thought were his family.

 

* * *

 

At first, they hadn’t really been aware that something was off.

While it was weird of Lance to just leave in the middle of the sleepy conversation, it wasn’t the weirdest thing the boy had done. Coming to the conclusion that Lance was too drained to keep talking, for once, and had just gone to bed they dismissed the odd behaviour.

Shiro turned and slowly surveyed the rest of the paladins. Pidge, without any continuing conversation to keep her awake, had started nodding, almost falling asleep at Hunk’s side. Hunk didn’t seem to be faring much better. Keith hadn’t even been disturbed from his sleep by the sudden departure, and Shiro himself felt like he could drop into a long sleep any minute, a rare occurrence for him. Over at one of the screens the Alteans too looked fairly fatigued as they returned to tiredly discussing the last mission quietly.

It looked like Lance actually had the right idea. Standing up and waking Keith he told them that they’d all done good work and that it was best they all headed off for a good rest. For once no one complained about going to bed early.

It seemed none of the crew members had seen the upset expression on Lance’s face before he’d turned away, a given as they were all barely able to keep their eyes open for more than a few seconds in their state of exhaustion. Perhaps if they had they may have caught on quicker, not that it would have changed much.


	2. Chin up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright second chapter. I'll talk about that in the end notes but first off shout out to [c00kieneko](http://c00kieneko.tumblr.com/) for inspiring me to start writing this fic. With out the two of us throwing head canons at each other this wouldn't exist.  
> secondly, thank you to everyone who commented and left kudos, they made me super happy and i'll try to reply to more this time.  
> Now time for a longer chapter, hope you enjoy it.

Lance woke up clutching his pillow in a tight grip hours earlier than he intended to. Closing his eyes again tightly he attempted to force himself back into unconsciousness, but he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Giving up the losing battle for sleep he rolled onto has back and tried his best not to think.

He’d been having trouble going to sleep for weeks already due to over thinking late at night, he didn’t need to add waking up to continued intrusive thoughts. But of course, forcing yourself not to think will ultimately lead to thinking about not thinking, which would then turn to other thoughts he hadn’t wanted to move on to.

Specifically, what he was going to do now.

Lance knew what they were doing was important, saving planets, freeing those who were enslaved, _protecting earth from the Galra_ , and he would be damned if he let those purple assholes get anywhere near his real family.

Even if all that meant was piloting the lion that didn’t have a better option yet, he would do it.

But that meant he was stuck here and he knew that he couldn’t take another rejected plan or not so subtle hint that he was talking too much, which he hadn’t done in a while but his reputation for doing so had stuck, and so on. Especially not the jokes about his intelligence, fighting skills and basically everything that he did.

Honestly, he wanted his mom, he missed her so much right now. He missed her smiles, her energy, her loud and lively personality, and her caring nature. He wished she was here right now, hell he’d even just take a hug for a few seconds.

She would know what he should do with her little pieces of advice and wisdom that always made things better. She would help him keep a clear head, find his confidence and probably say something along the lines of “Keep your chin up, don’t give those bullies a chance to see you react.”, Just like she had done for his older sister back when she was being targeted in her first year of high school.

That brought up the question to his mind though, would they count as bullies? He turned over and frowned at the thought. There was no way, that had to just be him being over dramatic about it all. There had been good times. At the start of this crazy situation he had genuinely been enjoying his time in space, even if it was lonely having gone from hundreds of people in his life to six.

But right now, Lance didn’t like hanging around the other castle goers at all, and if he knew anything about friends it was that you shouldn’t dread the thought of seeing them.

Maybe the old advice from his mom would work for this time too. He wasn’t going to give them what they wanted, he wasn’t going to let them take all of his hollow smiles anymore. He would keep his chin up and ignore anything that wasn’t Voltron.

Still he didn’t really want to test out this new strategy immediately, and if he wanted to avoid seeing his teammates, now was the best time to get up and ready. Before anyone else would be waking up for breakfast, something he didn’t think he could sit through yet. He didn’t feel like he could pull himself out of bed this early without the new motivation of avoidance.

Lance slowly sat himself up, and proceeded to get ready for the day. He even went as far as to pick up a little of his old morning routine. He’d abandoned it a while ago when he lost too much time in the mornings from sleeping in due to his late nights. Something that Allura didn’t seem to like given the number of, often public, scoldings he’d recently received for lazing around.

Just another new source for the snickering he’d heard from his teammates.

Once Lance had finished stalling from leaving the safety of his room he found himself standing in front of his door, unsure if he could follow through with this plan.

“I can do this.” he told himself quietly.

Finally, at 5 in the morning he forced himself to step into the hallway.

* * *

 

Lance successfully managed to sneak in and out of the kitchen before anyone else came in, taking some extra portable goo bars that had been developed by Coran in order to avert the need for a second trip later.

But he wasn’t out of danger yet so he crept silently along the halls praying that he wouldn’t encounter anyone, even going as far as to remove his shoes so there wouldn’t be a chance of squeaking along the polished floors.

He was headed to the lion hangers to hide away. He wouldn’t feel safe until he was inside Blue, who was always glad to have her paladin’s attention. Being the friendliest of the lions of course she would.

Finally, once he’d made it to his lion’s side he felt himself relax, having not noticed just how tense he’d been until he could feel her calming emotions envelop his mind lifting the weight he’d been feeling from his shoulders.

To him getting to Blue felt like a small win, he had sustained the inevitable for just a while longer. But the time for avoiding everyone dwindled as there was no way he could skip out from seeing them all day, He still had to face dinner.

For now though, he was going to catch up with his main girl and try to prepare himself mentally for his first interaction with the rest of the crew.

He had a feeling that this was how he would end up spending a lot of his free time for the next long, long while.

* * *

 

In the castle of lions, the group had decided early on, that in order to keep the paladin bond strong everyone would have to at least have dinner together every day. This would ensure that they had a constant connection and provided a break for those who ended up training or working for too long. Which meant that unless someone was in a healing pod there was no other reason not to show up.

Normally this would end up as a very loud event, the large room filled with chatter about the day, some arguments, a couple jokes and laughter, and sometimes stories from their pasts or previous missions. Today though, the table was a bit quieter.

Trying to figure out why, Keith turned to look for the missing voice. It seemed that while everyone else was caught up in the conversation, Lance was quietly eating small bites of his goo beside him with an uncharacteristically pinched expression. Well that wasn’t normal. At this point, usually Lance would have started some dumb argument with him, which would eventually capture the attention from the whole crew. Maybe he needed a little nudge today.

Leaning towards the other paladin Keith tried to catch his attention. No reaction, maybe the other was stuck in his thoughts. He’d try calling out to him, typically it didn’t take much to get Lance talking after someone began a conversation with him.

“Hey, Lance,” He said, all Keith got in acknowledgement was a quick catch of his eyes and the boy eating faster. “No one has seen you all day, where’ve you been?” He continues a little louder. Nothing, just more scraping from Lance’s plate, and not even a glance this time. The sound was starting to aggravate the red paladin.

He tried looking towards Hunk, seeing if he could catch the yellow paladin and get him to talk to Lance. Only he was too enraptured with something Pidge was saying excitedly. The two of them had worked themselves into a full on nerd out session with Coran about their latest success with the drones, which they were trying to explain to Allura and Shiro.

So, Keith went back to Lance, calling his name a few more times, maybe trying to annoy him into speaking. Still no response, though it looked like he may have stiffened a bit.

Not one to give up he tried a different approach, if there was one thing that could always get Lance into a conversation it was to challenge him. After that you’d be lucky to get him to shut up for even 30 seconds. Right now though, Keith would prefer that over this quiet which was both annoying him and maybe making him a bit uncomfortable, he’d never seen Lance so silent before. Hell, the guy had been blown up and had still managed to get out at least a couple of sentences at the time.

“Hey, the drones Hunk and Pidge were upgrading are finally done, I bet if we went down to the training deck after this I could take down more than you.” He declared with a smirk. Lance continued to hold his silence, but now he was glaring directly at Keith.

Good, maybe if he built on this he’d finally get Lance to speak. Besides he actually wouldn’t mind trying out the improved bots with the boy, it’d been a few days since the two had trained together.

“It looks like you could use the practice anyways, you’ll never beat me with those noodle arms.” He teased.

Any second now Lance would jump in saying “Oh yeah!? Let me show you what these “noodle arms” can do, buddy! I’m going to school you with these drones.” Or something along those lines. Lance never failed to do something with a taunt like that. Even if they had built up from their little rivalry into a sort of friendship.

Well he sure did something alright, just not what Keith had expected.

Lance completely shut down, quickly looking away and expression falling flat. With only a few bites left on his plate he rose silently and quietly headed towards the kitchen, presumably to deal with his dish.

Keith watched with a dumbstruck expression. Something must have been wrong, there was no way competitive, arrogant, self confident Lance would have turned away from that taunt albeit a half-baked one.

Shaking himself out of his shock, he looked to the rest of the table that was still absorbed in their conversation, now talking expressively about new projects they could work on around the castle. Keith was surprised no one had seen Lance’s departure. Clearing his throat to grab their attention he asked if any of them knew what was wrong with their friend.

“Something’s wrong with Lance? What happened? Wait, where is he?” questioned Hunk, looking worriedly around for the Cuban boy.

“He left, he’s been silent all night and I couldn’t even get him to speak by challenging him with the new training drones,” He sighed, Fiddling anxiously with the hem of his glove. "Didn’t you guys notice how quiet he was?”

“That’s not Lance, there’s no way he would ever turn down a competition! On a daily basis, he makes at least 5 bets with you before we can even have lunch,” Pidge exclaimed. “Do you think that could have been a clone or an impostor?” She theorized aloud, swiveling her body towards Coran probably to ask if the technology for that was possible.

Shiro put a hand on her shoulder to stop their chattering before they could go off on a different topic altogether.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for Lance’s sudden silence, maybe he’s just feeling under the weather.” He assured Keith, while looking Pidge in the eyes when she continued grumbling under her breath about cloning. “We can check on him tomorrow to see if he’s alright.”

“Oh well we should probably enjoy the peace while it lasts then, who knows With Lance when this chance will come again!” Pidge giggled, causing a couple scattered chuckles in their small group. Keith guessed if they were making jokes the rest didn’t think it was too serious of a matter.

And with that the conversation was deemed over, moving on to other topics easily.

Keith looked over to Hunk to see if he thought this was likely with his best friend. From what he could read on Hunk’s face, Hunk didn’t seem convinced that this was something as easy as Lance being a little bit sick. But he didn’t say anything against Shiro, so perhaps the big guy was just worried over Lance’s health.

Keith would let it go for now, but if Lance continued to stay silent for too long, Keith resolved that he would talk to Hunk. Plan in place he then allowed himself to join in on the rest of the exchange between the remaining paladins and Alteans.

* * *

Lance scraped his plate quietly as he was absorbed in his thoughts.

He hadn’t been prepared for Keith to try so hard for his attention, why couldn’t the stupid mullet just have left him alone? If all he wanted was a training partner he could have gone to Shiro.

At first when he’d walked in Lance had been focused, a result from meditating in Blue all afternoon. He had practiced locking up his emotions so the inevitable conversations and occasional jokes wouldn’t affect him.

He’d also worked on his bond with the lion. If he kept with this plan he’d still need some way to form Voltron with the others, and if he wasn’t working on level with the paladins then he had to make sure he could work well with Blue, using her as the glue keeping them together.

So, when he walked into the dining room first he waited and held on to his state of mind. When he saw Pidge, Hunk and Coran he was ready to not react. However, no greeting came, no acknowledgement at all. It was like he wasn’t even there. They were absorbed in a very passionate conversation about engineering, probably something about their latest project. They always joked that he wouldn’t understand their work, so he never asked anymore and ended up feeling out of the loop when they got into their genius talks.

That hurt though that they hadn’t registered his presence, he’d kind of wanted the attention even if he was ignoring them. Wanted them to ask why he wasn’t speaking to them. But that was just him being stupid, of course if he didn’t add himself to the chat they wouldn’t need him for this kind of topic.

So he sat quietly.

Shiro, Keith and Allura came in soon after and once Pidge saw them she’d quickly ran over and started babbling about all of the latest tech achievement. Amused at her antics the trio quickly joined the conversation as they set towards the table.

And just like that Lance was served and kept to himself as the others socialized. He’d accepted it once they’d shown no signs of looking to talk to Lance. At least it would make things easier.

That is, it would have made things easier, until Keith started bugging him. Which he didn’t expect. But by this point, Lance had been ignored himself long enough that he didn’t care, he didn’t want Keith to be in his space or any one to look at him anymore. Except Keith was persistent, and Lance had never been good at ignoring the boy.

But then he brought up the drones project, the reason nothing had happened and it soured any possible hope Lance may have had for Keith’s attention, which hadn’t really grown much since the red paladin had started pestering him. He couldn’t help turning to glare at the challenge.

Keith’s eyes seemed to sparkle a bit at having gotten something from him. Damn it he had one goal of not reacting, and now he couldn’t even hold onto the peace he’d worked to achieve for this exact situation.

And then Keith insulted him.

Lance wasn’t able to deal with that. He already knew his physique hadn’t improved and that he wouldn’t ever be as good as perfect Mr. Trains-away-his-life and he didn’t need another reminder. It may have been harmless but to him the little comment tore a new shallow cut from the deep wound inside Lance. Never having a chance to heal.

So, he left the jerk and his stupid smirking face. He would not unravel everything in a fit. But as he thought about the plan now over the newly cleaned dish, Lance realized that maybe it just wasn’t going to work. One meal and he’d already almost given in. Perhaps he should try something else.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just hit the drawing board later and take out his frustration on the damn drones. He’d try asking Keith if he was still up for the challenge. As he came close to the door he heard voices and prepared to recall his mask. He was about to step inside when he heard what they were saying.

“… tomorrow to see if he’s alright.” Came Shiro’s voice, maybe they moved on from the tech talk.

“Oh well we should probably enjoy the peace while it lasts, who knows with Lance when this chance will come again!” Giggled Pidge.  The room filled with chuckles and laughs.

Lance didn’t listen in for any more, he didn’t want to hear it. He hadn’t even needed to be in the room it seemed for the comments to cut at him. It sounded like it was better if he was silent.

Wiping his face, he crept away from the scene with out any of the people inside aware. They could have their peace, it was the only thing they wanted from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so in this chapter I played with dialogue, but i'm mostly going to keep lance without many lines at all unless really necessary for the plot. During the crew's parts they have dialogue and talk to each other because they're connected. They aren't the ones who have been cut off and silenced, so in their parts although lance will have to speak for voltron he won't have any dialogue written there. Its as if he's completely silent throughout their entire point of view. But in Lance's part he may say a few lines to himself because honestly when you're basically down toy yourself and your giant sentient alien mechanical lion you might start talking to yourself. other than that its all whats going on in his head I guess I was feeling symbolic or something.


	3. Hush in the Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunk's turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shout out this time to [its-moonie-chan](http://its-moonie-chan.tumblr.com/) for being so awesome and supportive of this fic. They're really nice and have even drawn art for this!
> 
> Now onto the chapter, I hope you like it.

In the castle, most people wake up for breakfast around 7 in the morning. However, unless they all wanted to eat the food goo again, which had quickly become their least favourite non-toxic food in the universe, it meant you could find Hunk in the kitchens cooking up something new for them to eat a little earlier.

It was here as he was relaxing making edible creations that he was best able to let himself think. And right now, he was wondering what could be up with Lance. He wasn’t Lance’s best friend for nothing, and right now his gut was telling him that there was something more going on with his oldest friend.

While Hunk knew it was true that Lance often tried to hide when he was truly sick or hurt, he’d never done it silently. Instead, Hunk had learned that unless it was something small which he would exaggerate, Lance would be found excusing himself frequently so others couldn’t notice or he would make excuses when he couldn’t get away fast enough.

It was a behaviour that Hunk could never figure out as he’d always expected Lance to be one who would endlessly complain over something that would actually merit it, but after knowing each other for 12 years it remained a consistent puzzling trait of the boy.

Still no matter how strange, Lance had never stayed quiet, if what Keith said had truly happened.

Hunk felt bad about that. He’d been at the table the whole time and yet hadn’t spared a single word for his friend, as he was unaware that Lance had been there at all.  This was rather dumb of him given that dinner was mandatory to all castle members. He’d just been caught up in Pidge’s excitement instead, as it wasn’t every day that one of their inventions ended up so successful.

They were installing what they called the “Blind Spot” setting in the drones which would give the drones the ability to become invisible for a few seconds randomly, giving them time to change positions where those training couldn’t follow. It was designed to train their spatial awareness and help them in dealing with the possibility of enemies with camouflage abilities. You never knew what you’d get in space.

But that was no excuse to forget to at least say hi to Lance. Maybe if he had he would have noticed his buddy being so silent and been able to tell if he was sick or not. He didn’t completely rule it out as a possibility as this could just be a new tactic of hiding, or maybe there was something to do with the illness that could have caused him to lose his voice.

In any case, despite the possibility of him being sick this showed Hunk that he’d been neglecting his pal. Ever since he’d started this project, he hadn’t had time to hang around with Lance, having been so dedicated to the drones’ success that he couldn’t afford any distractions.

So, if Lance truly had come down with something, and he’d be sure to check for the signs, then Hunk would be using his new free time to take care of him, maybe it would help shake off some of the guilt the yellow paladin was feeling. If Lance wasn’t sick, then maybe they could have one of their old sleepovers or something, like they did before they’d found themselves in space.

No matter what, today would be a day for the two of them to hang out. This would be nice, he thought as he turned his full attention back to the food.

* * *

 

It wasn’t until much later in the afternoon that Hunk finally got a chance to catch his friend. It had taken a while of wandering through the halls, but eventually he’d found Lance silently heading his way to the lion’s hanger, which was odd in the yellow paladin’s opinion.

Normally everyone in the castle knew exactly where the lively Cuban was headed as he’d either loudly proclaim where he was going or he’d make enough noise with squeaking shoes, whistling, or chatting with someone, that anyone could hear where he was on the way towards.

Deciding not to dwell on it much, Hunk went to fall into step with the other boy.

“Lance!” he called once he’d matched the other’s pace. The sudden sound of his voice must have startled the other boy based on the way he jumped and spun towards him in surprise.

Hunk tried to check if he showed any signs of illness, but other than some bags under his eyes and noting the lack of sweating or runny nose, the yellow paladin didn’t get to see much as his friend turned away and started walking again before he could look for anything else. However, coupled with the fact that he hadn’t heard any coughing or sneezing yet, Hunk thought it was safe to say that Lance wasn’t sick.

That was a relief. It would be a lot more fun to have one of their old hang outs than it would be to deal with a sick friend, although he’d still have been happy to do so.

“So, I was wondering if you wanted to have one of our old sleep overs like we used to, its uh, been a while since we had a good time to do one of those,” He asked. “We could even try to gather a bunch of blankets and pillows, and make a fort like we did back in high school.”

He waited for Lance to perk up and exclaim something like “Hell yeah! We can probably build an even better one now that we have alien sheets to work with!” with his normal enthusiasm, but instead he saw the blue paladin just slowing his walk beside him with an unsure expression.

Hunk would admit that he was a little disappointed with the lack of excitement, but he was more concerned with how strange his buddy was acting. Lance never hesitated on hanging out together and he definitely never looked like he had to debate with himself over spending time with the yellow paladin.

“Uh, Lance?” Hunk probed. This time he looked almost guilty which certainly wasn’t good, maybe something really was off. Perhaps Hunk could help with whatever was going on with him.

Moving to stand in front of the pilot, he stopped them from walking. Lance finally looked up to him almost nervously.

“Hey, everything okay buddy?” he questioned, carefully watching for any expressions in an attempt to read him. Looking for a clue as to what was going on in his head.

“Do you want to talk to me about something?” he continued, trying to get him to tell him what’s wrong.

For a second Lance was almost going to say something. He’d looked almost a little hopeful and taken a breath as though he were about speak, but then he paused. Inexplicably he then seemed to close up, shaking his head as if it was to get rid of the words he’d been about to voice.

And before he could wrap his head around the boy’s sudden change in demeanor, Lance made a dash away to the hangers like he had originally been on his way to, leaving a confused Hunk staring after him in the now empty hall.

With a sinking feeling, Hunk realized that this was bad. Lance had never had trouble telling him things and he’s certainly never run away from him like that.

As though Hunk was someone he’d _needed_ to run from.

* * *

 

Lance ended up sitting in Blue again.

When Hunk had wound up beside him his heart had dropped at being caught as he was still trying to avoid the others. He probably should have expected it. No one could end up alone for long in the castle given they only occupied a small area, meaning he was bound to come across one of them in the halls sooner or later.

He’d hoped for later.

And then his old buddy had started going on about their sleep overs and Lance had been temped but unsure. He’d missed Hunk as the engineer was the only one on the ship who hadn’t been after him in some way lately. That was probably only due to him being so preoccupied with all of the improvements he’d had to do around the castle though.

No time for jokes or distractions like Lance if there’s work to do, right?

Yet still with that being the case, he’d wanted just a little to join in on the idea, even if all he got out of it was the fort like from their past. If they could close off the outside for a bit, Lance might be able to momentarily forget about his place on the team, his responsibilities, and feel just a bit closer to home. But he was supposed to be cutting of the whole team which included Hunk.

So, Lance was stalled.

He must have taken too long on his internal debate as the other then started asking if he was okay and to talk to him. The questions had sounded so genuine and caring that as Lance was already lost in thoughts of home he’d almost started venting to the boy like he’d done so often in the past whenever he’d needed an ear for his problems.

But then he remembered that this was probably just for his sake, as he now knew for certain about how they’d all loved the idea of a break from Lance’s chatter. It was likely a formality at this point for Hunk, listening to his complaints when he’d rather do something else.

He had to remind himself that he was being silent for them now, he wasn’t going to subject his annoying self to the useful people in the castle anymore. And so, he’d ran away because if he had stayed with Hunk he would have caved and fallen back into his old routine of spouting his unwelcomed woes to the other.

This left him back in Blue with the echoes of last nights’ emotions and nothing better to do than to try and learn to lock it all away in the back of his mind. He wouldn’t forget again.

* * *

On that first night after the interaction he’d had with Lance in the hall, the blue paladin hadn’t shown up for dinner, which they all knew no one was allowed to miss. Hunk had been upset that the other had avoided the mandatory meal after what had happened earlier, but not nearly as much as the princess had been on his missing obligatory paladin bonding time.

The next morning Allura had forced them all to wait for him at breakfast. Once Lance had arrived, late, which definitely didn’t win points with her, she had heatedly lectured him on the importance of dinner, of how rude it was to the rest of the group, and how it was his duty to work towards the bond unless he wanted to fall behind and be the reason Voltron failed.

Hunk thought that was way too harsh and had looked on sympathetically as Lance shrunk into himself.

When he first arrived, the boy had walked in with a stiff posture, bracing as though aware of what was going to happen. But as Allura continued he eventually began to curl into himself and stare at the floor like it was all he could look at to hold on. He didn’t protest, only nodded weakly as he was visibly torn down in front of them. She clearly went over the top on this one infraction.

At the end of the lecture Hunk had hoped that Lance would break the tension like he normally would, but he didn’t really expect anything after that kind of verbal smack down. It was understandable that he wouldn’t want to talk right now, lest he incur another round of Allura’s wrath.

So, the table had been left in awkward whispers between the rest of the paladins, and the sound of Lance hurriedly eating his food as fast as he could. Hunk was a little amazed he hadn’t choked. The minute the blue paladin finished they’d all watched as he practically bolted out of the room. Allura looked a bit guilty as she watched him rush to put as much space between them as possible.

Once he’d left, they had asked her why she’d gone after him so angrily. After a long pause, she finally relented that it had more to do with her than Lance. She told them that while all of the reasons she claimed the dinner was important were true, it had more to due with memories from her past that had cause her to blow up at him. Back before her 10,000-year slumber, the table had been filled every night and she couldn’t stand to let go of her small attempt to recreate the nightly tradition.

After her admission, they tried to comfort her, promising to help her feel as much at home as the rest of them tried to be. However, they had made it clear that she would need to patch things up with Lance. If she’d been hard enough that even a jokester like him had run out of the room, then she’d really gone too far.

With that settled, Hunk wasn’t too worried. Lance forgave easily and would bounce back quickly like he’d always done. At least he assumed he would, despite how weird he’d been acting before.

The next time any of them saw Lance it was time for that night’s dinner and he’d been the first one there, sitting silently like he hoped they wouldn’t see him. Allura delivered her apology the moment she saw him, although Hunk noticed that she’d left out the reason she’d been so angry in the first place.

As Hunk knew he would, Lance forgave her, but, all he did was nod his acceptance, and remained so uncharacteristically silent. It worried the yellow paladin as in most of the time if someone said sorry to the other it would have been received with teasing and playing off the situation. Without his usual antics, the atmosphere remained as quiet and strained as it had earlier.

In the hush, Hunk found himself missing Lance’s ridiculous jokes, as well as his loud rambling, flirting, and laughing. By the looks on the other paladins and Alteans it seemed like he wasn’t the only one.

When the meal was done they all left with the heavy feeling of having lost something they didn’t know they’d missed, even if it was temporary.

The next day, Hunk watched as the others tried to cheer him up, but it seemed like Lance wasn’t allowing any of them to succeed.

Keith tried asking him to spar or have little contests with him, hoping it would ignite some response. Pidge tried complaining around him about needing a project to do as if she was bored, hoping he would take the bait and start spewing out the tons of impractical ideas he always had tried suggesting to her. Shiro and Hunk tried to engage him in a conversation hoping to get him to open up, like Hunk almost had the afternoon before. Allura wanted to try opening up to Lance’s flirting one liners in a platonic way, but they never came. Even Coran couldn’t seem to get anywhere with tons of wild methods, and that man was probably the only one Lance had had a heart to heart with since they’d entered the ship.

But Lance would only stay silent or leave the room no matter what they did, much to Hunk’s growing worry, and after a few days of this, he realized that the blue paladin was actively ignoring all of them. This notion hurt, but it was the only explanation he could think of for Lance’s behaviour.

Allura was a wreck as she thought it was all her fault, but Hunk knew this was too much to have been over one bad lecture. He’d watched the Cuban receive them plenty of times in the past from family members, teachers, and garrison officials that there was no way he’d react like this just to one more from her. This had to be something deeper.

Eventually the others caught on as well, and given that Hunk was supposed to be Lance’s best friend he wasn’t surprised when a rather dejected Keith came up to him asking why he was avoiding them.

The only honest response Hunk could give was a quiet “I wish I knew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright this was a really hard chapter for me to get out, but its finished! Finally the plot is moving and we get to see Hunk in all of his worried glory. 
> 
> I had to start off with his point of view because of certain reasons, mainly that I wanted to explain that Hunk hasn't been around much. This is important because I don't believe that if Hunk had not been busy that he wouldn't have noticed Lance in his downward spiral. He would have been there for him and I just think that if he had Lance wouldn't be at this point where he couldn't take it anymore. And so I had to make sure that Hunk was out of the picture a bit. 
> 
> What can I say? Hunk is too good. He may be terrible at comforting people like in season 2 but at least he'd notice and try. And he would probably be better at comforting the kid he's hung around with for 12 years anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so I hope you enjoyed this, we're all in for a ride. I'll change ratings, add tags, and all that stuff if it becomes necessary. Please don't hesitate to tell me if there is any grammar mistakes.
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr at <http://skitnote.tumblr.com/>


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